A BLAST from the past was uncovered during renovation works at a long-established business premises in Langholm last week.
Lisa Rothwell-Young, a jeweller, bought the shop in Henry Street, formerly owned by grocer John Ritchie.
The shop is being gutted and fully refurbished and Lisa is having a new sign painted above the shop by artist Katie Anderson.
Katie was sanding down the wood in preparation for painting when she discovered, underneath, a sign for Joseph Martin.
Joe owned the corner shop many decades ago and Arthur Elliot, now 85, of Academy Place, remembers going there as a schoolboy during and after the war. He left school in 1951.
He said: “I remember Joe. He had a nickname “Hungry Joe” but I don’t know how he came by it.
“The lads, who came to school from the country and couldn’t go home at dinnertime, queued up outside his shop. There was no dining hall in the school.
“There were quite a few corner shops in those days but Joe would command quite a lot of customers.
“He would make quite a bit of money out of those schoolkids.
“He sold all sorts and if you went in with a halfpenny, you’d always be able to buy something.”
Katien’s specially-commissioned sound and sculptural installation The Call was a highly-intriguing addition to the Spring Fling Spring Fling Pop Up at Mill on the Fleet, Gatehouse and Dumfries.
It featured two performers with large, sculptural speakers and listening devices.
They moved around, playing an original contemporary composition created from recordings of people singing the chorus of Scots song Ca’ the Yowes.
The song, thought to have been from a poem by Ayrshire’s Isabel Pagan, has been popularised at different times by figures such as Robert Burns and Dougie MacLean.
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